West Highland Way

Fri 27th-Sat 28th February

This is a report on Al's and Nige's first adventure as self proclaimed 'Bivvy Legionnaires'.

It all started with a simple post from Al on the forum:-

Doing the northern half of west highland way from tyndrum to Ben Nevis on Friday 27 Feb staying in a hostel Friday night then reversing the rout on sat. Only me and brownpants doing it so far but the hostel has lots of spare beds.

That was it really, a few posts wishing them luck and secretly a few peoples thinking 'Nutters'

Anyway what follows is a report from Nige as to how it went:-

Well Al and I made it in one piece - albeit very wet from constant drizzle to Fort William with no major problems. I had a slight fall off the edge and fell a few feet - battled scarred the Titus that's all.
After sleeping next to the A82 (cosy not) Al and I - or rather Al made sure I got up- at 8am and parked the car at the Green Welly rest stop at Tyndrum .
We bought a couple of maps and had a hearty breakfast before our big adventure.

So off we set with joys of spring on a well marked track. A hour later we were hurtling along tracks , generally woohooing and saying we'll be in FW by lunch ( Very bored though as the tracks were tracks and wide and tracky) .

 Then we hit Rannock moor which the sign at The Foresters Lodge said " You will be 15km from civilsation so if in doubt turn back now - DO NOT PROCEED" . Well them Scots must be poofs or something because you'd have to be a fricking idiot to lose your way or injure yourself. So an hour or so on and we came to the Kings Hotel at Glen Coe Ski centre. Here we put some of our clothes back on as it got a bit chilly , photographed a couple of wild deer and then carried on towards the long awaited Devils Staircase . Everything was going well and the riding enjoyable but too easy - technically wise anyhow .

So upwards towards the top - looking forward to trying to ride it - I was sadly disappointed . The Scots seem to think that a drainage ditch is needed every 5 metres which made climbing impossible so we had to walk, ride tiiny bit, curse walk , curse , curse and f**king curse.
I think the stress of walking brought on my urge to poo , so I had to have a call of nature and my only regret is that I didn't do it in a drainage ditch. Al kindly walked on at this point and looked over the top of the summit. When I arrived he stated rather sadly that it goes up again after it's gone down .
Oh well , down we went and gingerly crossed the dreaded ditches which spoilt the flow until we humped our bikes up the other side to the top.
Surely we've reached the good bit we thought - we could see very technical sections with wet sharp big rocks. Not a single dab from either us so TOP marks awarded .
It kind of got less techy but still slow and difficult with no rhythm . Then we hurtled down about 2- 3km of forest road which we assume the Scots class as part of the Devils Staircase - w****rs!!
So we were now at Kinlochleven and Al has put a deposit on a house because he was awe struck by its ambience and character .
Now another big climb out up through single track - great- NO - that's right they decided we'd better put some drainage ditches in just in case anybody gets their little  tootsies wet every 5 meters . Eventually we reached the top and came to the best bit from here on in . It was along the old military road again and it undulated for quite some way with melon sized rocks for company . I managed to ride it all , whilst Al conserved a bit of energy ( His words not mine as he was knackered) . We were approaching FW now with 15km to go and it gave us the option of road or forest. I chose! Off we went into the woods and wooped and holored for a long time along muddy/stoney  tracks . Joy was soon over though and my thoughts of fish and chips were escalting into Whale and chips ! We had loads of climbing to do now and were both feeling knackered so any pushing was no joke .

We then descended into FW down fast forest roads and hit tarmac totally grateful of it . A short cycle to the Hostel - couple of miles ; and 2 very wet woollys checked in . Bikes locked away and clothes hung up to dry/fester.

Fajitas for me , Burger for AL ( size of a Highland Cow ), cider and whiskey , pool 2-1 to me and home for 9.30 and bed .
Sweet dreams as we'd decided to catch the train back to Tyndrum and ride Whinlatter on the way home and be fresh for Sunday club ride too.
All in all I'm very glad I did it and would do it again with 28 bags of cement for the ditches but boy oh boy does Whinlatter blow the cobwebs out.

Oh-forgot to add that Al threw all his cider and burger up in the night . and it took 8 hours and was very physically hard plus I got a new ailment 'BOYS Hellmet rub ' which was most uncomfortable

A big well done to the lads on their first adventure.

PHOTOS